A President's Brief Respite

BYLINE: By JIM RUTENBERG; Allison Kopicki and Mark Landler contributed reporting.

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; National Desk; NEWS ANALYSIS; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1051 words

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Presidential candidates can usually count on luxuriating in a few days of warm feelings from their convention as they ride the high generated by impassioned supporters and cross their fingers for rising poll numbers.

But for President Obama, the party could come to an abrupt halt even before he breaks camp here Friday morning when the government releases its employment report for August, a blunt reminder of the forces working against him.

The Democrats inside the hall here on Thursday night as Mr. Obama accepted his party's nomination for a second term defined the race as a fundamental clash of visions between Republicans who want an every-man-for-himself society and Democrats who want to ensure that the middle class gets a fair shake -- what Mr. Obama called ''the clearest choice of any time in a generation.''

But that message of promise for the future is up against the immediacy of persistently high unemployment, which, no matter what Friday's report shows, is unlikely to drop so much before Election Day that it will recede as an issue.

So the biggest question for Mr. Obama as he heads into the home stretch against Mitt Romney and the Republicans is whether he can make the race about sufficiently big and compelling issues, and draw a sharp enough contrast between what his policies and Mr. Romney's would mean for the middle class in the years ahead, to keep the outcome from being swayed by constant reminders of the shaky state of the economy.

The answer, and the result in November, will turn in large part on which is more potent: Mr. Obama's argument that he offers a way toward ''a better place'' for struggling middle class voters whom Democrats say Mr. Romney does not understand, or the more troublesome reality of the moment for voters as they ponder Mr. Romney's question about whether they are better off than four years ago.

From the start, Mr. Obama's campaign aides acknowledged that they were attempting something of a Houdini act in seeking to push the focus of the election ''Forward,'' as their slogan goes, beyond the ''now'' that is harder to pretty up.

Now leaving the cloister of his national convention, and the free network airtime it gave him to put forward his strongest case unopposed, Mr. Obama will be in an environment in which Mr. Romney can use his well-financed general election bank account to outspend him on advertising and hammer home the message that Mr. Obama had his chance and failed.

Obama campaign officials are also mindful that any major economic disruption in the next two months could impede their efforts to focus on the future. They are tracking oil futures so they have a handle on possible gasoline price increases and watching developments in Europe to be on top of any possible financial crisis as much as they are analyzing Gallup tracking polls.

Even before Mr. Obama gave his acceptance speech here, Mr. Romney's aides were pointing to the statistics that went unmentioned in the progression of feel-good speeches that at times made the Time Warner Cable Arena feel like a hermetically sealed Democratic Happyland.

''The middle class has been crushed these past four years, and all the president is offering is more negative commercials and stale ideas,'' said Stuart Stevens, Mr. Romney's strategist. ''As Governor Romney said, 'It's still the economy and we're not stupid.' ''

Democrats, who play down the prospects of any major polling lift for Mr. Obama, acknowledge that they do not have an easy case to make. ''It's hard,'' said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. ''But don't forget this: If people can be given an explanation of the past, they want to believe in the future.''

Mr. Schumer argued that former President Bill Clinton had managed to do that here on Wednesday night with his point-by-point look at the historically grim economy Mr. Obama inherited and the 4.5 million private jobs created during his term -- not enough to cover all the damage from the recession, which Mr. Clinton said he could not have fixed in one term himself.

Mr. Obama's aides say they are convinced that voters are more likely to base their choice for president more on what they think will be best for them in the next four years than on what transpired in the last four.

They are taking comfort in the idea that they have succeeded in turning the race into ''a choice between two different paths,'' as Mr. Obama put it on Thursday night -- beating back Mr. Romney's attempts to define the election as a referendum on Mr. Obama's tenure. Any doubt that he wanted that message to get through was dispelled when it used the word ''choice'' some 20 times in his 38-minute speech.

Democrats say Mr. Romney, who is running close to Mr. Obama in national polls, helped along the process of making the election a choice by picking as his running mate Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, whose conservative budget proposals make the policy differences between the parties that much clearer.

They are battling history as much as the current reality. Polls are full of the sort of numbers that have ended presidencies in the past, with frequent poor marks on his handling of the economy and a sense that the country is moving in the wrong direction.

But Mr. Obama's aides are counting on the notion that each election is unique, not fated by history. And they have other poll numbers that give them heart, including those showing that majorities agree that the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes, that job creation is helped along by spending on public projects, and that blame for the economic situation rests more with his predecessor than with him.

''We put the last four years in perspective last night about what the situation was when we took office,'' Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama's deputy campaign manager, said Thursday, ''and how we're on the right path.''

That made the delegates and lawmakers in the arena here feel better. ''A lot of people came in feeling sort of nervous after the Republican convention,'' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont. ''I feel a lot more optimism than I did before I came,'' he said.

Whether that optimism will prove justified will likely depend upon not only Friday's jobs report but on the one after that, the one after that and on Mr. Obama's ability to keep the focus beyond them.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/us/politics/job-numbers-may-undermine-obama-convention-bump.html

LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News Analysis

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

The Ad Campaign: Recalling a Less Friendly Time

BYLINE: By SARAH WHEATON

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Politics; THE CAUCUS; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 403 words

3:12 p.m. | Updated Bill Clinton proved Wednesday night to be one of President Obama's most forceful and substantive surrogates, but he has hardly been the most consistent. In fact, in a new ad, Mitt Romney's campaign is reminding voters that Mr. Clinton was once a sharp critic of Mr. Obama, in 2008.

"Give me a break," Mr. Clinton said in New Hampshire on the eve of that state's primary more than four years ago, when Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Obama were in a tight race for the Democratic nomination. "This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," he said of Mr. Obama's position on the Iraq war.

Mr. Clinton's words drew immediate criticism from Democrats, especially African-Americans.

The ad notes that Mr. Clinton is sounding a different tune today, though it casts him as "a good soldier, helping his party's president" after being called upon to support a "failing campaign."

The narrator then recites recent unemployment figures and says that the middle class is falling "further behind" before the "Give me a break" clip rolls a second time.

The Romney camp has spoken well of Mr. Clinton's presidency. Stumping in Iowa on Wednesday, Representative Paul D. Ryan, the vice-presidential nominee, noted Mr. Clinton's economic successes and said that Mr. Romney would save the welfare reforms that the 42nd president enacted.

The Romney campaign declined to provide any details about where the ad was running, its standard practice. But after Mr. Clinton's 48-minute convention speech, one thing is clearly better off than it was four years ago: the Clinton-Obama relationship.

Update: A statement from Lis Smith, an Obama spokeswoman, echoed Mr. Clinton's words from Wednesday night: "It takes a lot of brass for Mitt Romney to cite President Clinton, who last night dismantled the falsehoods upon which Mitt Romney's entire campaign is based. As President Clinton said, President Obama 'inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery,' and because of his leadership, we're moving forward. But Mitt Romney and Congressman Ryan would make things worse and take us back to the same failed trickle-down policies that caused the crash and devastated the middle class in the first place. The Romney campaign's too cute by half ads can't change that simple fact."

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

GRAPHIC

URL: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/clinton-was-not-always-an-obama-fan-romney-ad-recalls/

LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

After a Disappointing Jobs Report, Romney Attacks Obama

BYLINE: JEREMY W. PETERS

SECTION: US; politics

LENGTH: 314 words

HIGHLIGHT: Mitt Romney questioned on Friday whether President Obama "knows what he's doing" when it comes to fixing the economy.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Seizing on a disappointing jobs report, Mitt Romney questioned on Friday whether President Obama "knows what he's doing" when it came to fixing the economy.

"There's almost nothing the president has done in the past three and a half, four years that gives the American people confidence that he knows what he's doing when it comes to jobs and the economy," Mr. Romney told reporters as he stopped here for a campaign rally.

In Mr. Romney's first remarks since the Democratic National Convention wrapped up on Thursday night, the Republican nominee said Mr. Obama had offered little more than empty promises. The employment report released on Friday morning showed that the economy added 96,000 jobs in August, down from a revised figure of 141,000 in July and well below the 125,000 level economists had been expecting.

"What is he going to do to get this economy going?" Mr. Romney said. "And all he said last night was the same as what he said four years ago -- which, by the way, he made a lot of promises four years ago. Can you think of any of those promises that was met? I mean, he was going to create jobs. We haven't. Lower unemployment? He hasn't. Rising take-home pay? It's gone down."

His appearance in Iowa came as the Romney campaign was ramping up activity on another front. It announced on Friday a major advertising campaign in eight swing states. The commercials - 15 in all - are specifically tailored to resonate with voters in each of those states.

In Florida, for example, people will see commercials about falling real estate values and high foreclosure rates. In Colorado, where the military and defense contractors are large employers, people will hear how the president's budget cuts could cost 20,000 military jobs there.

And here in Iowa, they will hear how "excessive government regulations are crushing small businesses and family farms."

LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Jobs Numbers Prompt Obama to Account for Anemic Recovery

BYLINE: HELENE COOPER and JEREMY W. PETERS

SECTION: US; politics

LENGTH: 692 words

HIGHLIGHT: His convention speech was only hours old when President Obama, confronted by a dismal new jobs report, found himself having to use precious time on his campaign trail to account for the country's continued anemic economic recovery.

IOWA CITY - His convention speech was only hours old when President Obama, confronted by a weak new jobs report, found himself Friday having to use precious time on the campaign trail to account for the country's continued anemic economic recovery.

As he has been forced to month after month, the president responded by shifting the blame to Congressional Republicans, calling on lawmakers to pass the jobs bill he proposed last year and that has been languishing since.

"Today we learned that after losing around 800,000 jobs a month when I took office, businesses added private-sector jobs for the 30th month in a row," Mr. Obama told a campaign rally in Portsmouth, N.H. He did not mention that the actual number of new jobs reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier in the morning, a figure that was lower than expected.

"But that's not good enough," Mr. Obama said. "We know it's not good enough."

The president called on Congress to commit to extending middle-class tax cuts. "If Republicans are serious about getting rid of joblessness, they can create one million new jobs if Congress passes the jobs plan I sent them," he said.

Mr. Obama is on a post-convention campaign trip through crucial swing states, starting in New Hampshire on Friday morning before heading to Iowa City and then ending in St. Petersburg, Fla. There he will begin a bus tour over the weekend through Florida, a perennial battleground.

He was joined by his full ticket: The first lady, Michelle Obama (who the president called "amazing" at the convention), Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill Biden.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, wasted no time in jumping on the jobs report Friday. On his way to a campaign stop near Sioux City, Iowa, Mr. Romney told reporters that the latest employment report was a fresh reminder that Mr. Obama's leadership has left Americans with little more than broken promises and empty hope.

"There's almost nothing the president has done in the past three and a half, four years that gives the American people confidence that he knows what he's doing when it comes to jobs and the economy," Mr. Romney said, adding that the president's speech Thursday to the Democratic National Convention contained even more promises that will go unfulfilled.

"What is he going to do to get this economy going?" Mr. Romney said. "All he said last night was the same as what he said four years ago, which by the way, he made a lot of promises four years ago. Can you think of any of those promises that was met? I mean, he was going to create jobs. We haven't. Lower unemployment? He hasn't. Rising take home pay? It's gone down."

His appearance in Iowa came as the Romney campaign was ramping up activity on another front. It announced on Friday a major advertising campaign in eight swing states. The commercials - 15 in all - are specifically tailored to resonate with voters in each of those states.

In Florida, for example, people will see commercials about falling real estate values and high foreclosure rates. In Colorado, where the military and defense contracting is a large employer, people will hear how the president's budget cuts could cost 20,000 military jobs there.

And here in Iowa, they will hear how "excessive government regulations are crushing small businesses and family farms."

The president, meanwhile, got in some licks of his own. During his speech, Mr. Obama tried out a new attack line against the Republican push for tax cuts, deriding the Republicans as running to tax cuts as the solution for every problem.

On Friday morning, as is his wont when he finds a line he likes, Mr. Obama was ready to expand. Mr. Romney and his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, Mr. Obama said, view tax cuts as a miracle cure. "Tax cuts to help you lose a few pounds! Tax cuts to help improve your love life!" Then he grinned.

LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

GOP ticket back to campaign biz;
Romney preps for Oct. debate

BYLINE: Jackie Kucinich, USA TODAY

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

LENGTH: 246 words

With the Republican and Democratic conventions in the rearview mirror and a week of debate prep under his belt, Mitt Romney will hit the trail again today as the campaign enters its final two months.

Romney is scheduled to hold events in New Hampshire and Iowa today. On Saturday, he heads to Virginia.

While Democrats celebrated here this week, Romney hunkered down in Vermont at the home of former Massachusetts lieutenant governor Kerry Healey to prepare for his Oct. 3 debate with the president.

He was joined by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who reprised his role as President Obama in mock debates.

Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., began the week stumping in Greenville, N.C., just four hours away from the Democratic convention. He then continued to other key swing states, including Colorado, Iowa and Ohio.

Ryan is scheduled to attend a rally in Sparks, Nev., today.

The Romney campaign is also ramping up its television ad campaign -- buying at least $4.5million worth of TV time in eight swing states after being dormant for 11 days, according to NBC News.

Both the Romney campaign and outside groups that support them have begun prioritizing where they should spent precious campaign dollars.

Romney and conservative groups that back him aren't running ads in Michigan or Pennsylvania, according to local news reports.

That could indicate Republicans don't have high hopes for those states, which have been considered key battlegrounds for most of the election season.

LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: NEWSPAPER

Political theater Political theater

BYLINE: Peter Marks

SECTION: Style; Pg. C01

LENGTH: 2682 words

Did you happen to notice how, in his masterly mix of reciting and extemporizing, global statesman and Yale Law School graduate Bill Clinton repeatedly inserted the language of back-porch authority into his convention speech? Phrases like, "You all got to listen to this" and "Now think about this" and "You won't be laughin' when I finish tellin' you this"?

Folks, this here was your former commander in chief, taking you by the shoulder, whether you were in the hall or not, and giving you some advice about when to hoot or holler or clap or laugh (or not). His alternation of tone - wryly down-home one minute, charmingly prosecutorial the next - revealed what a useful education in rhetoric politicians can receive when they actually have the opportunity to hone their technique over the decades, from one spotlight moment to another.

The 48-minute speech - an instant convention classic - came just in time. To borrow a phrase from the theater, the Democratic convention was having second-act problems. After the oratorical studliness of night one, when a bill filled by such bracing speakers as former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and first lady Michelle Obama turned the gathering into an exuberant rally on the subject of the nation's future, the second night was shaping up to be about as galvanizing as a zoning board hearing on height variances.

And Thursday night, with its marquee turns by Vice President Biden and President Obama, Clinton's presentation still seemed to resound the loudest - until Obama really got going.

Biden, his voice overloaded with portent, gave a fawning account of his association with Obama, which seemed to go over especially well with a misty-eyed first lady (who sat up front with Biden's wife, Jill). But the schmaltziness sounded as though the words came from an old movie - "I sat beside him as he made one gutsy decision after another," he declared - and so the endorsement lacked the consoling illusion of candor.

Obama, true to his nature, was the smoother, cooler antidote to Biden's unmodulated heat, and in repeating the mantra of auto-industry rehabilitation that has been a convention theme all week, you might say he was wrapping himself fully in the cars and stripes. But the man knows how to build a performance, and, as the speech shifted from rather dreary policy details to the theme of aspiration, the president came into his own.

"If you turn away now, if you turn away, if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn't possible, well, change will not happen!" Obama intoned. The speech did not brim with personality, the way Clinton's did, but it harnessed Obama's robust star quality.

Despite its agonizing interminability and waning relevance, a national convention still can be a star-maker: the tough-minded Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, made a splash in Tampa, and the dashing Castro did the same at the mike in Charlotte. But as with the GOP the week before, far too few of the rank-and-file Democratic speakers seemed as though they could outperform the dullest member of a middling high school debate team. It made me wonder more than once: Why do people with only a rudimentary grasp of how to engage a large audience go into, of all things, politics? And what is the salutary effect on young people watching for the first time - other than to encourage them to go to bed early?

As I did on three nights last week, I sat down this week to a tubeful of conventioneering, to look not so much at the political impact as the degree to which the tools of performance were being used by the parties effectively. This was not an exotic pursuit, for I learned long ago that every political reporter is in part a theater critic; the vocabulary the pundits use on a pivotal night in a campaign is direct from the Broadway manual. "Tonight, we were reintroduced to a star!" gushed the liberal commentator Ed Schultz, on MSNBC, after Michelle Obama's emotional Tuesday night stemwinder. Still, as experienced mostly on C-SPAN - the cable outlet for those who want more of the voices onstage and less of the motormouths off - a convention has more time to kill than speaking talent to fill it. (Kamala Harris, the beautiful and highly touted California attorney general, was among those granted a prime-time speaking slot who displayed a need to work a little more on her delivery.)

Maybe it's simply that formal addresses have little currency in a tweeting nation. And yet, having heard or seen what remarkable orators such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy could accomplish, we all yearn to be swept away by the power of speech. What we're exposed to more often today are halting, stumbling struggles with teleprompters just out of a television audience's vision, and irritatingly rehearsed hand gestures that come across as hackneyed stage directions: "For emphasis, press fingers of hand to thumb, and thrust forward. Now, open palms."

To reinvigorate the art of declamation, it might be time for a new competition series: "So You Think You Can Speak?"

Regardless of how much a political campaign can be reasonably expected to keep such a protracted television event compelling, the two parties were at least trying at times, even inadvertently, to do so. (The roll-call vote has become such a fait accompli the parties wisely shove it into off-hours.) Say what you will about Clint Eastwood's Albee-esque dialogue in Tampa with The Invisible Man; it made an otherwise bland aspect of the pageant unmissable. And an appearance center stage in Charlotte by Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student subjected to offensive characterizations by conservative commentators after trying to speak at a congressional hearing on contraception, provided some intriguingly offbeat casting. It helped, too, that her remarks came across as succinct and polished. "I'm here because I spoke out," she said, with a firmness that reinforced her reasonableness and sense of conviction. "And this November," she added, "each of us must speak out."

The Republicans created a more modern and appealing physical environment around their speakers, a series of 13 screens framed in cherry and mahogany, and each a distinct geometric form. The set looked like no other I've seen at a convention, and so you were encouraged in the belief that the gathering might itself be an interesting alternative. The Democrats went for an epic motif, with towering projections behind the podium of postcard American scenes and symbols. This nostalgic imagery and more traditional-looking design seemed reminders of a party in power, given the task of maintaining American might and values.

More important for the viewer at home, the hall in Charlotte, the Time Warner Cable Arena, pulsated more vibrantly than did the convention center in Tampa. The difference might have been that the Democrats simply fill the space with more delegates than the rival party. That paid off in what you might call the crowd scenes. The roars were louder in response to the speakers' imploring words. When Mark Antony asks for ears to be lent in "Julius Caesar," the drama tends to be heightened when the Forum is more densely populated.

If the wide hall amplifies exhilaration, the camera funnels warmth, when it detects it. That might be why candidates' spouses often play so well in convention appearances. Beyond the visceral affection the delegates project in those close-up reaction shots, the mates sometimes manage to reveal some genuine flavor, a magnitude of belief in the candidate that eludes speakers who don't know the nominee as well - or resort to platitudes that are repeated ad nauseam into the night. By virtue of the delight that she seemed to take in her turn at the microphone, Ann Romney communicated persuasively her faith in her partnership with Mitt. Michelle Obama added an extra measure of writerly know-how, as she drew a link between her husband's commitment to the nation, and her own commitment to him.

"I can honestly say when it comes to his character, and his convictions, and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago," she said. She wasn't beneath a bit of hagiography: describing her husband as hunched over a table at night, reading letters from ordinary citizens, seemed an allusion to another president who engaged in soul-searching epistolary contact with his constituents, Abraham Lincoln. But as Clinton would on the following night, she gave a potent rendition of what's known in musical theater as the 11 o'clock number - that crucial moment at evening's end, when the music must ignite the crowd.

marksp@washpost.com

Did you happen to notice how, in his masterly mix of reciting and extemporizing, global statesman and Yale Law School graduate Bill Clinton repeatedly inserted the language of back-porch authority into his convention speech? Phrases like, "You all got to listen to this" and "Now think about this" and "You won't be laughin' when I finish tellin' you this"?

Folks, this here was your former commander in chief, taking you by the shoulder, whether you were in the hall or not, and giving you some advice about when to hoot or holler or clap or laugh (or not). His alternation of tone - wryly down-home one minute, charmingly prosecutorial the next - revealed what a useful education in rhetoric politicians can receive, when they actually have the opportunity to hone their technique over the decades, from one spotlight moment to another.

The 48-minute speech - an instant convention classic - came just in time. To borrow a phrase from the theater, the Democratic convention was having second-act problems. After the oratorical studliness of night one, when a bill filled by such bracing speakers as former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and first lady Michelle Obama turned the gathering into an exuberant rally on the subject of the nation's future, the second night was shaping up to be as about as galvanizing as a zoning board hearing on height variances.

Despite its agonizing interminability and waning relevance, a national convention still can be a star-maker: the tough-minded Susana Martinez, governor of New Mexico, made a splash in Tampa, and the dashing Castro did the same at the mike in Charlotte. But as with the GOP the week before, far too few of the rank-and-file Democratic speakers seemed as though they could outperform the dullest member of a middling high school debate team. It made me wonder more than once: Why do people with only a rudimentary grasp of how to engage a large audience go into, of all things, politics? And what is the salutary effect on young people watching for the first time - other than to encourage them to go to bed early?

As I did on three nights last week, I sat down this week to a tubeful of conventioneering, to look not so much at the political impact as the degree to which the tools of performance were being used by the parties effectively. This was not an exotic pursuit, for I learned long ago that every political reporter is in part a theater critic; the vocabulary the pundits use on a pivotal night in a campaign is direct from the Broadway manual. "Tonight, we were reintroduced to a star!" gushed the liberal commentator Ed Schultz, on MSNBC, after Michelle Obama's emotional Tuesday night stemwinder. Still, as experienced mostly on C-SPAN - the cable outlet for those who want more of the voices onstage and less of the motormouths off - a convention has more time to kill than speaking talent to fill it. (Kamala Harris, the beautiful and highly touted California attorney general, was among those granted a prime-time speaking slot who displayed a need to work a little more on her delivery.)

Maybe it's simply that formal addresses have little currency in a tweeting nation. And yet, having heard or seen what remarkable orators such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy could accomplish, we all yearn to be swept away by the power of speech. What we're exposed to more often today are halting, stumbling struggles with teleprompters just out of a television audience's vision, and irritatingly rehearsed hand gestures that come across as hackneyed stage directions: "For emphasis, press fingers of hand to thumb, and thrust forward. Now, open palms."

To reinvigorate the art of declamation, it might be time for a new competition series: "So You Think You Can Speak?"

Regardless of how much a political campaign can be reasonably expected to keep such a protracted television event compelling, the two parties were at least trying at times, even inadvertently, to do so. (The roll-call vote has become such a fait accompli the parties wisely shove it into off-hours.) Say what you will about Clint Eastwood's Albee-esque dialogue in Tampa with The Invisible Man; it made an otherwise bland aspect of the pageant unmissable. And an appearance center stage in Charlotte by Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student subjected to offensive characterizations by conservative commentators after trying to speak at a congressional hearing on contraception, provided some intriguingly offbeat casting. It helped, too, that her remarks came across as succinct and polished. "I'm here because I spoke out," she said, with a firmness that reinforced her reasonableness and sense of conviction. "And this November," she added, "each of us must speak out."

The Republicans created a more modern and appealing physical environment around their speakers, a series of 13 screens framed in cherry and mahogany, and each a distinct geometric form. The set looked like no other I've seen at a convention, and so you were encouraged in the belief that the gathering might itself be an interesting alternative. The Democrats went for an epic motif, with towering projections behind the podium of postcard American scenes and symbols. This nostalgic imagery and more traditional-looking design seemed reminders of a party in power, given the task of maintaining American might and values.

More importantly for the viewer at home, the hall in Charlotte, the Time Warner Cable Arena, pulsated more vibrantly than did the convention center in Tampa. The difference might have been that the Democrats simply fill the space with more delegates than the rival party. That paid off in what you might call the crowd scenes. The roars were louder in response to the speakers' imploring words. When Mark Antony asks for ears to be loaned in "Julius Caesar," the drama tends to be heightened when the Forum is more densely populated.

If the wide hall amplifies exhilaration, the camera funnels warmth, when it detects it. That might be why candidates' spouses often play so well in convention appearances. Beyond the visceral affection the delegates project in those close-up reaction shots, the mates sometimes manage to reveal some genuine flavor, a magnitude of belief in the candidate that eludes speakers who don't know the nominee as well - or resort to platitudes that are repeated ad nauseam into the night. By virtue of the delight that she seemed to take in her turn at the microphone, Ann Romney communicated persuasively her faith in her partnership with Mitt. Michelle Obama added an extra measure of writerly know-how, as she drew a link between her husband's commitment to the nation, and her own commitment to him.

"I can honestly say when it comes to his character, and his convictions, and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago," she said. She wasn't beneath a bit of hagiography: describing her husband as hunched over a table at night, reading letters from ordinary citizens, seemed an allusion to another president who engaged in soul-searching epistolary contact with his constituents, Abraham Lincoln. But as Clinton would on the following night, she gave a potent rendition of what's known in musical theater as the 11 o'clock number - that crucial moment at evening's end, when the music must ignite the crowd.

marksp@washpost.com

LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

Romney launches ads in eight swing states saying Americans are not better off;
Republican nominee launches new swing state ads.

BYLINE: Sean Sullivan

LENGTH: 256 words

A day after President Obama officially accepted the Democratic nomination for reelection with a prime-time address in Charlotte, Mitt Romney released 15 television ads in eight swing states, each of which argues that Americans are not better off today then they were when Obama took office.

Each of the ads begins with a clip from Romney's convention speech, which he delivered in Tampa last week.

"This president can ask us to be patient," Romney said. "This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. But this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office."

The ads are running in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

In every spot, the first third is the same. The last 20 seconds, however, vary from ad to ad, as each is tailored to address a specific issue, including defense spending, manufacturing, energy and government regulation.

"Here in Virginia, we are not better off under President Obama," says one of the spots. "His defense cuts threaten over 130,000 jobs, lowering home values, putting families at risk. The Romney plan? Tax cuts for middle class families."

"Here in Florida, we are not better off under President Obama. Home values collapsed; home construction jobs lost; high rate of foreclosure," says another spot. "Romney's plan? Provide alternatives to foreclosure. End the mortgage lending freeze. Create over 700,000 new jobs for Florida."

In all states except New Hampshire and Nevada, more than one version of the ad is running.

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Romney not planning on watching Obama's convention speech;
The Republican presidential nominee says he is not planning to tune in Thursday night.

BYLINE: Sean Sullivan

LENGTH: 564 words

Make sure to sign up to receiveAfternoon Fixevery day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!

EARLIER ON THE FIX:

Making the case for a second term: A recent history

Analyzing President Obama as speaker

Democratic National Convention final day: 5 speakers to watch

Obamas challenge: Win over economic doubters

Bill Clintons speech in 1 word cloud

Is Bill Clinton one of the best presidents in history?

Election Day in Massachusetts: Four things to watch

Bill Clinton: The smiling assassin

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

* A new ad from Mitt Romney seeks to play Bill Clinton againstPresidentObama bypointingto comments Clinton made during the 2008 Democratic primary casting doubt on Obama's contention that heconsistentlyopposed the Iraq War. "As the economy gets worse, Barack Obama calls on Bill Clinton to help his failing campaign. But what did Bill Clinton sayaboutBarack Obama in 2008?" the narrator of the ad asks.

* Ratings are in for Wednesday night: According to Nielsen, the opening game of the NFL season between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants Wednesday nightaveraged about 23 million viewersin the 10:30-11:30 p.m. hour. During the same hour, about 22.8 million viewers tuned in for the Democratic National Convention (Clinton's speech took place during this time) on commercial networks. Taking Current TV and PBS into account, Clinton's speech comes out on top.

* On a conference call, Obama reached out to supporters who are now unable to attend his convention speech because it was moved to a smaller, indoor venue amid weather concerns.We cant let a little thunder and lightning get us down,Obama said. Were going to have to roll with it.

* The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is up with a new contrast TV ad hitting Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.) for voting for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget plan (that would revamp Medicare as avouchersystem for those currently under 55) and arguing that Democratic nominee Heidi Heitkamp "will protect Medicare."

WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T MISS:

* Romney doesn't plan on tuning in for Obama'sconvention speech tonight, saying[If] I heard, or from the excerpts that are put out, I hear that the president is going to report on the promises he made and how he has performed in those promises, Id love to watch it. But if its another series of new promises that hes not going to keep, I have no interest in seeing him because I saw the promises last time."

* Clinton ishitting the campaign trail for Obama next weekin Ohio and Florida.

* The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching eight new independent expenditure ads. Six of the ads target Republican-held seats, one goes after Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) in his merged district member-versus-member race against Rep. Betty Sutton (D), and one targets Republican nominee Jason Plummer in Illinois's 12th District, where Rep. Jerry Costello (D) is retiring.

* According to a strategist tracking ad buys, the Government Integrity Fund, an outsidegroupaimingto boost Republican nominee Josh Mandel against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), is up with a current ad buy valued atabout$1.4 million.

*DelawareAttorney General Beau Biden will deliver the nominating speech for hisfather, VicePresidentBiden, on Thursday night.

THE FIX MIX:

Mad music.

With Aaron Blake

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Political theater

BYLINE: Peter Marks

SECTION: STYLE; Pg. C01

LENGTH: 2675 words